


Professionalism, calm, certainty, formality

by qwertysweetea



Category: Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Dialogue, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Guilt, Hannibal is Hannibal, Movie: The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Obsessive Behavior, Poor Will Graham, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Silence of the Lambs References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 19:05:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12871053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwertysweetea/pseuds/qwertysweetea
Summary: Alternatively named: Clarice, the cannibal and the man with the messed up faceJack had warned Clarice that Hannibal might bring up Will Graham; Clarice feels herself becoming a lot more invested in the man she's only ever seen as a part of case studies in the classroom. Jack Crawford has some words of warning for her.[Set post TV Hannibal, but during The Silence of the Lambs]





	Professionalism, calm, certainty, formality

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to reread The Silence of the Lambs after I finished watching Hannibal, and Hannibal asking Clarice about Will Graham on their first visit became a Hell of a lot more significant. So this happened.

“His legs broken of course, just like his companion who mocked Christ. Are you entirely innocent of the Gospel of St John? Look at Duccio, then – he paints accurate crucifixions.” And just like that, without appearing to change the subject at all, and with a look of soft curiosity, he added “How is Will Graham? How does he look?”

“I don’t know Will Graham.” Clarice replied flippantly, even to her ears it sounded a little on the wrong side of dismissive. She cursed herself quietly, somewhere in the back of her head where she hoped he wouldn’t be able to see.

Professionalism, calm, certainty, formality: that’s what Jack reckoned the key to talking to Hannibal was. Don’t let him know you’re scared because he’ll feed off it. Don’t let him know you’re anxious because he’ll exploit it. Be polite. None of those things was a stretch for Clarice. Jack must have known that.

Clarice didn’t think she was scared. Apprehensive yes but not scared. Even as a child she hadn’t scared easily, then again as a child she had never been sent to work with one of the most infamous cannibalistic serial killers of the era, pictures of her predecessor used as a harsh reminder of the price they could all pay for their work.

She wondered if they smelled the same, if Doctor Lecter was smelling the apprehension on her and was mistaking it for fear.

“You know who he is,” back to the conversation at hand. Of course she did, he knew; the FBI would make sure that anyone working within a square mile of him knew all about Will Graham. “Jack Crawford’s protégé.” Lector elaborated. “The one before you. How does his face look?”

“I’ve never seen him.”

“This is called ‘cutting up a few old touches,’ Officer Starling, you don’t mind do you?”

Beats of silence and her eyes flickered down to the papers in her hand, the reason she was here.

If she was smart then she’s jump now. But she was smarter. For once she went with intuition rather than instruction and allowed him his moment. Jack had warned her that he’d want to talk about Will; he said it with a heaviness that emphasised how uncomfortable he was with it.

A little warning light went off somewhere in the back of his head, right alongside the part of her still lamenting her choices. She might very well ruin her career in trying to get the answers she needed from him.

“Through the grape vine,” she started “I knew that he was a teacher who was investigating you.”

“Unconventional choice, much like yourself.” Lecter contributed.

“You gutted him with a linoleum knife, and it was a wonder he didn’t die. That you turned Dolarhyde on him and his family. I heard that his face looks like Picasso drew him, difficult to look at; Dolarhyde got him in the jaw before he went over the cliff and the fall did the rest.”

“I’m sure the FBI created quite a heroic story for him when they realised they couldn’t throw him under the bus. What else?”

“I’ve heard nothing else.”

“Heard, no but you are an intelligent girl. Practical. You’ve done your research.”

“Tattler articles, mostly. That you were consorts, partners-in-crime; Will masterminded your escape singlehandedly and joined you in butchering those agents. Tabloid ridiculousness, exaggerations, and half-truths.”

“Were they?”

_Not so much ‘touching up a few old cuts’ as trying to…_

“Doctor Lecter, while we’re touching up a few cuts, I brought –”

“No. No, that’s stupid and wrong. Never use wit in a segue. Listen, understand a witticism and replying to it make your subject perform a fast, detached scan that is inimical to mood. It is on the plank of mood that we proceed. You were doing fine, you’d been courteous and receptive to courtesy, you’d established trust by telling the embarrassing truth about Miggs, and then you come in with a ham-handed segue into your questionnaire. It won’t do.”

Something made Clarice think that talk of Will Graham was over.

-

Handing over her report to Crawford was as nerve-wracking as she expected it to be.

“I need you to understand Starling,” he started, swilling the fizzing Alka Seltzer tab in his mug around a few times before finishing the lot in one mouthful “Lecter’s obsession with Will Graham goes beyond what either of us really understands. I said to you that if he wants to talk about him you let him, if you think it’ll get us answers, but I can’t have him dragged into this –” _again_ , he only just bit back. Somewhere behind his stoic expression the words _he didn’t survive the last time_ danced but refused to come out.

“I lost him out on the field. He may be alive, but I never got to bring him home. At the end of it all, Lecter took everything from him: his wife, his step-son, his friends, his face, his mind. All he has left now it the booze and his pet dogs.”

Clarice wondered for the smallest moment if the poor bloke she was finding herself invested in wasn’t better off in the company of creatures that didn’t only talk about him in the context of an ugly face and damaged mind.

Being a survivor of Hannibal Lecter was a feat not managed by many. If Will Graham was entitled to anything for his contribution towards his capture then it was much more than an early retirement and his picture passed around classrooms as a case study.

Unless, of course there was more to it. There had to be more to it.

“Was there something between Doctor Lecter and Will Graham? Something more?”

At that Jack pointed towards the seat on the other side of his desk, prompting Clarice to take it as he took his own. Then suddenly as his expression had become neutral, it became almost solemn.

“I assume you know about Will Graham’s condition?”

“He had a very good imagination but his diagnosis is still up for discussion.”

“Some people think he was on the Autism spectrum, others said Anxiety or Personality disorders, some type of Schizophrenia, and some said he was a Sociopath like Lecter. Will thought he had an Empathy disorder and I have no reason to doubt him; he was good at getting into killers heads, sometimes he struggled to let go of the things he found in there. Will Graham got into Lecter’s head, and he let Lecter get into his.”

“Doctor Lecter insinuated that they were close.” Clarice contributed.

“They were. He killed and butchered people in the line of duty, and ate them right alongside Lecter. He spent a lot of time in his company. Somewhere along the line he stopped knowing if it was to help us catch him or if it was because he wanted to. He orchestrated Lecter’s last escape without knowing if it was to help us catch Dolarhyde or if it was because he wanted him to escape.

“Even after Lecter gutted him, Will had a split in his mind: putting away the monster or joining him. Lecter was obsessed with him, and Will was obsessed right back. I know what you’re asking because I know well enough how it looks, Freddie Lounds plastered it all over the paper and neither of them refuted it, but I personally don’t care what he calls it and I don’t care what Will would call it either; it wasn’t love. That wasn’t love.”

“Doctor Lecter thought it was love.”

“That man is not capable of love, he never was and Will knew that.”

 _Did you tell Will Graham that?_ She only just managed to bite back herself. It must have been clearly painted on her face, however. Like she had spoken the words, Jack seemed to recoil a little from it, disguising it behind a series of shifts like he was trying to get comfortable in his chair. Clarice reasoned that he probably hadn’t been able to get comfortable for a very long time.

“I need you to remember that too. I threw you into the lion’s den Starling, and I did it for three reasons: you’re intelligent, you’re polite and you’re interesting, but you’re a lot like him. You’re more like him than just being an unconventional detective under me. I knew that when I sent you in.

“So I need you to remember that that man is not capable of love and he’s not capable of compassion. He’s charming and deceptively gentle when he wants to be, and he can draw people in like Charlie Manson in an ice-cream truck, but remember what I said to you before: never forget what he is.

“Don’t let Lecter into your head. If he’s inciting an interest in Will it’s for a reason and it isn’t going to be pretty. If he feels like he’s getting too close to you then you tell me. I don’t want you going the same way as him.”

Clarice wondered how long it would be before he started referring to her by her first name or if that was a privilege only officer that had fallen under his command got; if that was the case, she thinks she can handle Starling a little longer.

With his warning she left, feeling surprisingly light and a little bit worried about what that could imply. Somehow, the thought of having a picture of her mangled face being passed around a classroom was far less daunting than the thought of not getting to continue her conversation with Hannibal Lecter.


End file.
